Health Care

TORONTO- Unifor will seek judicial review of an arbitration award that set the new terms of collective agreements covering hundreds of long-term care workers that continues a trend of failing workers in the sector.

CHATHAM – Health care workers are taking their issues right to Chatham, Ont.’s Riverview Gardens after they say negotiations have broken down.

Negotiations have broken down between Unifor Local 127 and Riverview Gardens, a Home for the Aged operated by the municipality.

“Throughout the pandemic, our members have always put residents of long-term care first and they demand fair pay and respect,” said Katha Fortier, Assistant to Unifor’s National President. “It’s time Riverview Gardens listened.”

They hugged. They cried. They shared stories.

More than 100 Covid heroes met in-person for the first time since the pandemic began in 2020.

Health care workers gathered at Unifor’s Family Education Centre in Port Elgin, Ontario. on June 9, 2022 for Unifor’s three-day Health Care Conference, to discuss bargaining strategies and challenges facing their workplaces and their sector.

In celebration of Personal Support Worker Day on May 19, 2022 Unifor salutes the contributions of the thousands of Unifor members who work as Personal Support Workers (PSWs) in Ontario, and Continuing Care Assistants (CCAs) in Nova Scotia.

THUNDER BAY– Long-term care workers, families of residents, community members banded together for the Thunder Bay LTC Day of Action.

“Our heroes in health care are burnt out and struggling to keep up in long-term care homes,” said Katha Fortier, Assistant to Unifor’s National President. “PSWs and other workers who have worked through what can only be described as a humanitarian crisis are leaving the industry in droves. Fortier continues” Poor compensation, lack of full time work and COVID-19 have just made a bad situation worse.”

More than 100 members gathered in Thunder Bay on May 13-14 for the annual Northern Ontario Leadership Meeting to strategize on how to best organize and elect progressive politicians in the upcoming Ontario provincial elections. 

Unifor continues to stand with workers across the country and around the globe in recognizing and celebrating the outstanding contributions of nurses during National Nursing Week. Nurses across the nation need our support and solidarity like never before.

“As a union we need provincial governments to immediately correct this and other wrongdoings of the past and invest in health care,” said Assistant to the National President Katha Fortier, who is also a nurse and is responsible for overseeing health care at Unifor.

Napanee, ON – Unifor is outraged after members returned to work following a nearly 6-month long strike at Napanee’s Lennox and Addington Interval House, only to be wrongfully terminated.

“The women of LAIH went on strike to improve their working conditions and the services that they deliver. To be met with these unfair and unjustified terminations upon return to work is shameful behaviour from an employer that claims to espouse equity and justice,” said Katha Fortier, Unifor Assistant to the National President.